Greetings! This is my first post and I thought I’d take a quick moment to introduce myself. I am a 41 year-old male from the United States and I have been living with OCD since first being diagnosed at age 11. My symptoms were light and manageable until I reached my mid-to-late teens and my parents marriage went through turmoil. Before I knew it, I was plagued by contamination thoughts. I was afraid of contracting HIV through contact with stray, used hypodermic needles. That one plagued me for a lot of years (and continues to do so to a lesser extent than it did when it first originated). In conjunction with that, I also developed Pedophilia OCD. It was pretty benign for a lot of years, and then about 5 years ago it came on with a vengeance. It was around this time that I first attended therapy which focused on treating the OCD symptoms through ERP. Unfortunately, the two therapists I had weren’t very good at administering the therapy, but I was fortunate enough to be introduced to it. About 3 years ago I developed Harm OCD. Much like the PedophilIa OCD, the Harm OCD focused not on the potential that I could do harm to someone, but, instead, it focused on the “what if” I did something in the past and I suppressed it. I can’t tell you how many hours over the past five years I have mentally reviewed (to the point of exhaustion) certain moments of my life to gain clarity (read: “certainty”) about what actually happened just to feel better. Does anyone experience OCD in this way? Does anyone else worry they’ve done something bad in the past that will eventually catch up with them in the future? I’m not looking for reassurance here, just to know that I’m not alone, and maybe learn how to cope a bit better with it on the difficult days. As far as what I’m doing to manage the OCD today, I’m really digging in and just beginning to understand ERP and ACT. I would like to adopt those therapies and embody them (along with other healthy habits) because I really do want to commit to recovery. Thank you all very much for reading my story. I look forward to getting to know everyone and being part of a healthy community.

Anonymous

Date posted: 7y

Hello, I am a 23 year old student and I struggle with the exact same form of Harm OCD. For me, it tends to happen that I misremember any sort of event and think that I’ve somehow offended or hurt the person involved. Invariably, when I have gone to confess the person has told me that the event in question was unimportant. This is so hard to combat with ERP because rumination is my prime compulsion and it is so so so easy to do. I’ve still not made a ton of progress, but what little I have has been from ACT and ERP. Generally, I try to allow the stressful fears of the past to flow through me without attempting to negate them. You must accept the uncertainty that the past event may have occurred. However, you must also accept that your OCD is making the event so much worse than it truly is and understand that the risk is low and you are not a bad person. I hope this helps and I wish you well! I’m not a health professional and I’m not in therapy now. This is just what is starting to work for me. I’d love if anyone could comment upon the effectiveness of my strategy.

Yankees12

Date posted: 7y

@RalCHARide that was a great post. I can really relate to a lot of it. At what page did you first start noticing symptoms? Which OCD type has been the most difficult for you?

Yankees12

Date posted: 7y

@Starlord, thank you for the helpful advice. The strategies you mentioned have worked well for me too

Anonymous

Date posted: 7y

Thank you very much!

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